Matchfixing is a very serious offence and accusations of matchfixing should not be made lightly. Please avoid making accusations against specific individuals unless you have substantial proof, or until further information is released. (0620 KST)
On March 05 2015 13:50 Swoopae wrote: Got a final statement from Pinnacle regarding Dream vs Super game 1. They announced they would not be making another public statement but that they stand by their decision to cancel all bets on that match due to the 'irregular betting activity' on it. They went on to say
Dear Sir,
We are not going to release any specifics on what happened in this match.
We believe it is safe to bet on E-sports lines with us as we protect our clients from these irregularities by cancelling all the wagers on lines with these irregular betting patterns.
Kind Regards, Customer Service Department / Pinnacle Sports
Well, that's fair, it's not Pinnacle's place to talk more about it. The problem is, KeSPA is probably going to just bury the story because they're KeSPA, and people talking about match fixing is the absolute last thing they want...
Just to bump this, earlier this week I received a PM on twoplustwo from a poster who claims that he received an offer to be told the results to 3-4 fixed matches a year for 2k euros. He first asked me whether it's illegal to bet on fixed matches, then shared this info. English doesn't seem to be his first language and he didn't share any other info about himself.
The poster in question doesn't have an extensive post history so I have no idea if he's credible. I can provide screenshots of the PMs in question to a mod or anyone investigating this, but don't see a reason to post them publicly unless people want me to given I have no idea if the poster in question is credible or not and by extension this could just be a guy trolling me, although I don't see what purpose that would serve.
Here is a word for word quote from his PM to me (in reference to SC2 matches)
'I have been in betting for 3 months and I have already come to the source which can give me 3-4 fixed matched / year. I dont say its legit 100% because I havent got any of those matches yet, but I am his costumer for other bets where I pay subscribtion so he wouldnt lie because he would lose a costumer for long-term.'
When I asked him to put me in touch with this 'source' he said
'I dont see 1 good reason why would I give any name / email.'
'It works that way that you pay him 2000€ for example and he gives you fixed match - is this illegal if I buy from him? Email is the safest place to make that kind of deals right ?... 3-4 / years isnt a lot'
Also, while we all appreciate that you forward all the information Swoopae, it'd be nice to get a confirmation from someone else as well. All I know about this comes from Swoopae, that I have never heard about before. I think you would agree that it is dangerous to rely on a single source for information in something like this. :/
Anyway, I am too lazy to go and do research on betting sites, so I guess this will have to do...
edit: the reason to make the caht log public is to raise awareness. As it is now, it seems like no one cares that a lot fo the pro sc2 games possibly are fixed, which I honestly don't understand at all... Maybe another good thread with the chat-logs would wake some more people up? What is going on with the "investigation" anyway? Has anyone heard anything??
ok, oppinion from someone not into betting just seeing this thread randomly, not worth much but anyway:
speculations on throwing the game based on in-game performance are idiotic. anyone can have bad times.
speculations on throwing the game based on overall "line movement patterns" are idiotic too. if anything, such patterns prove the opposite - the general betting public saw the player wasn't in his usual top form and changed bets accordingly. if there was any matchfixing, the bets that win big from it would be just from a few people that are in on it, and probably not that large as to affect the overall totals.
and if you beleive that matchfixing info sales can explain why the number of "people in on it" were large enough to affect overall totals, i've god news for you - such sales are 99% of the time just scams and happen without any actual matchfixing. they do not reach out to that large audiences too, because that increases the risk of getting caught or getting identified as scams.
that the betting site canceled the bets and used total line movement patterns as an excuse not to pay out what'd be some financial loss for them is no surprise, they are just some greedy bastards that's use any excuse they can to save them some cash. it does not mean there was matchfixing.
this surely worries me, but the simple truth is that i won't watch any match now being paranoid about it. As long as there is no big name bringing this up, i am not sure if we will ever get real info here.
I have never bet on nor plan to bet on esports. However of course match fixing is a concern and would make anyone that enjoys watching angry.
Stepping away from the specific issue for a moment
When have health issues for Sc2 players ever been a 'confidential' issue? I am sure we could come up with a list of players who have had known health issues prior to games they played. Likewise which country a player is playing from, how much latency there is, are they playing with jet lag or been awake for more than a day, even if were they out all night drinking the night before.
Or one player saying something along the lines of I really hate playing a long game against zerg, I really struggle to win against swarm hosts. Or even more straightforward, a player saying 'I don't think I can win against my opponent'.
Which could be an entirely honest statement given in an interview. Not everyone has placing bets on their mind.
From the point of view of betting I imagine this is all relevant and how someone could be angry if they bet one way and lost without having any of the above information. I dislike the way betting twists peoples thinking.
Going back to the specific situation. If San was in pain and having health issues that were significant enough to impact practice and performance, it is not going to be a closely guarded secret. Of course I can see someone with the mind to try and make a profit from that information. So the issue is then not that he was having health issues but that it was not known worldwide sufficiently in advance of the game. In which case I would say leave players out if it. That is the much wider issue of people having relevant information that not everyone has available to them, in which case where is the line drawn on that? this is bound to have come up in other areas.
Of course if evidence appears of money changing hands I stand corrected but do not jump to conclusions like 'San was paid to throw the match'.
As mentioned esports is still relatively young, of course match fixing is a serious issue but I would rather not see reputations dragged into the mud based on little or no actual evidence.
players hide injuries in sports like basketball/football quite frequently. Obviously things like broken leg/hand are public and easily visible but strains or bruises aren't always reported if the player is integral and is say able to play at 70-80%.
On March 14 2015 16:06 Swoopae wrote: I have no idea if the poster in question is credible or not and by extension this could just be a guy trolling me, although I don't see what purpose that would serve.
The question I would ask myself is what's his purpose for contacting you at all? Surely, he could have found a better source of legal advice on his potentially illegal activity.
I'd say it's over 90% that you're getting trolled, or worse.
On March 14 2015 16:06 Swoopae wrote: I have no idea if the poster in question is credible or not and by extension this could just be a guy trolling me, although I don't see what purpose that would serve.
The question I would ask myself is what's his purpose for contacting you at all? Surely, he could have found a better source of legal advice on his potentially illegal activity.
I'd say it's over 90% that you're getting trolled, or worse.
I agree, but I guess I don't really know Swoopae's reputation on twoplustwo. Maybe he's akin to a mod / staff there so people would come to him with random issues like this.
Otherwise, there's just so little reason someone would come to him out of the blue for legal / betting advice when he doesn't even speak the same language natively.
I'm not a mod there, but i'm a longterm reputable poster with 10k+ posts and 100k+ in financial transfers (mostly poker related, some sportsbetting) to forum members with no issues so people trust me.
At the end of the day nothing is going to happen here unless Kespa investigates, sc2 betting markets are being manipulated and whether thats as a result of match fixing, inside information or something else who knows, but it's concerning, and worthy of being bought to the attention of the community in general.
It is very likely that the match between Yoda and Bunny was match fixed today. To give you a perspective what the lines should look like: Aligluac predicts Yoda 68%, Bunny 32%. Those are the recent games both players played in TvT:
YoDa: loses 0:2 to TY wins 1:0 Marineking wins 1.0 Cure wins 2:1 Marinking
Those results look a lot better for Yoda here because Cure is very good and a loss against Apocalypse should be very telling.
The betting lines at Pinnacle Sports opened with Yoda as a favourite and stayed that way for most of the time. Considering the here presented analysis this should not be too surprising to anyone. Shortly before the match starts there is a hugh stream of money on Bunny. After the odds moved so much that now Yoda was the slight underdog I messaged Pinnacle to look into that. That was already very strange. That was however just the beginning. The line for Yoda moved over 3 in decimal odds. That means if you put 1$ @ Yoda you would have gotten more than 3$ for a win of Yoda. Those odds said that Yoda was predicted to have less than 33% to win this match. This is completely ridiculous considering that Yoda should be the favourite here. Proof for the line movement: http://imgur.com/StEcLUu
I am not accusing any of the players. I didn't even watch the game: For me this line movement is however proof beyond reasonable doubt that there was something fishy going on. Nobody that doesn't have an unfair advantage is putting huge amount of money at Bunny at those strange odds. That makes no sense at all.
Sadly we cannot rely on Pinnacle Sports to provide fair bets anymore. They decided not to void the bets despite doing so in the past in similar cases (San vs Dark, Dream vs Super). I lost trust in them today and I want everyone who is betting to be very careful. A lot of betters that bet fair and square lost money today and there is no guaranty anymore that one of your future bets will not be effected. A group of people made a lot of money today. Not pinnacle sports but all the normal betters payed that price today. The numbers don't lie. I wonder what the reason is that Pinnacle Sports decided not to void the match. This is pure speculation. Did they want to avoid drama? Did they not want to pass on their profit from fees? I don't know. I think Pinnacle was aware early on that there was something fishy going on. The betting limit on that bet was @ 95€ which is very odd. All the other bet limites were over 200€ today. It is not uncommon that the limit exceeds 1000€. The last time I remember a bet limit capped that low was between San and Dark which got voided later. The one thing i do know for sure is that I don't trust Pinnacle Sports anymore to void manipulated bets. Please be careful out there!
------------------------------------------------------------- Statement from Pinnacle Sports:
Dear Client,
We appreciate your inquiry into the betting activity in the Bunny vs Yoda match.
Our operations staff has looked into the betting activity and has come to the conclusion that, although there was some volatile line movement, that there is not sufficient evidence to deem the betting as highly suspicious.
We only cancel wagers due to suspicious betting activity in the rarest of circumstances, and those circumstances were not met in this case .
Kind Regards, Customer Service Department / Pinnacle Sports
Eh I wouldn't think Yoda is favoured against Bunny. It's not the european Bunny, but the lesser known Korean one. You say his matches look less good, but losing to Bbyong is no shame and winning against sKyhigh is a lot better than winning against Marineking in TvT.
On March 18 2015 05:26 HolydaKing wrote: Eh I wouldn't think Yoda is favoured against Bunny. It's not the european Bunny, but the lesser known Korean one. You say his matches look less good, but losing to Bbyong is no shame and winning against sKyhigh is a lot better than winning against Marineking in TvT.
Then why did Aguiliac have Yoda as a 60% favorite?
On March 18 2015 04:09 StarGalaxy wrote: It is very likely that the match between Yoda and Bunny was match fixed today. To give you a perspective what the lines should look like: Aligluac predicts Yoda 68%, Bunny 32%. Those are the recent games both players played in TvT:
YoDa: loses 0:2 to TY wins 1:0 Marineking wins 1.0 Cure wins 2:1 Marinking
Those results look a lot better for Yoda here because Cure is very good and a loss against Apocalypse should be very telling.
The betting lines at Pinnacle Sports opened with Yoda as a favourite and stayed that way for most of the time. Considering the here presented analysis this should not be too surprising to anyone. Shortly before the match starts there is a hugh stream of money on Bunny. After the odds moved so much that now Yoda was the slight underdog I messaged Pinnacle to look into that. That was already very strange. That was however just the beginning. The line for Yoda moved over 3 in decimal odds. That means if you put 1$ @ Yoda you would have gotten more than 3$ for a win of Yoda. Those odds said that Yoda was predicted to have less than 33% to win this match. This is completely ridiculous considering that Yoda should be the favourite here. Proof for the line movement: http://imgur.com/StEcLUu
I am not accusing any of the players. I didn't even watch the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxPES0Bkeeo For me this line movement is however proof beyond reasonable doubt that there was something fishy going on. Nobody that doesn't have an unfair advantage is putting huge amount of money at Bunny at those strange odds. That makes no sense at all.
Sadly we cannot rely on Pinnacle Sports to provide fair bets anymore. They decided not to void the bets despite doing so in the past in similar cases (San vs Dark, Dream vs Super). I lost trust in them today and I want everyone who is betting to be very careful. A lot of betters that bet fair and square lost money today and there is no guaranty anymore that one of your future bets will not be effected. A group of people made a lot of money today. Not pinnacle sports but all the normal betters payed that price today. The numbers don't lie. I wonder what the reason is that Pinnacle Sports decided not to void the match. This is pure speculation. Did they want to avoid drama? Did they not want to pass on their profit from fees? I don't know. I think Pinnacle was aware early on that there was something fishy going on. The betting limit on that bet was @ 95€ which is very odd. All the other bet limites were over 200€ today. It is not uncommon that the limit exceeds 1000€. The last time I remember a bet limit capped that low was between San and Dark which got voided later. The one thing i do know for sure is that I don't trust Pinnacle Sports anymore to void manipulated bets. Please be careful out there!
------------------------------------------------------------- Statement from Pinnacle Sports:
Dear Client,
We appreciate your inquiry into the betting activity in the Bunny vs Yoda match.
Our operations staff has looked into the betting activity and has come to the conclusion that, although there was some volatile line movement, that there is not sufficient evidence to deem the betting as highly suspicious.
We only cancel wagers due to suspicious betting activity in the rarest of circumstances, and those circumstances were not met in this case .
Kind Regards, Customer Service Department / Pinnacle Sports
EPT
